I know of two newspapers named The Public Opinion. One of them is in Chambersburg,  Penn., and the other one is farther west, in Watertown, S.D. Not sure which one ended up publishing this doozy of a correction, or if there’s another paper by the same name elsewhere.

Note: this post has been updated to reflect that the other newspaper named The Public Opinion is in South Dakota, not New York state.

Three lives shells, one spent, in a 5-shot revolver concealed WHERE? Here’s the story.

Click on the jump to see the video.

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Remember classified ads? In newspapers, at least, they’re a hollow shell of what they used to be. Here’s an oldie-but-goodie someone sent me in an email. Somebody spun a charming script out of this one that became a 2012 indie movie, “Safety Not Guaranteed.” I watched it on Netflix last night; it’s a dramedy and it’s pretty darn good.

When I posted this funny headline yesterday, I got an email from reader John Markell claiming that his favorite crazy headline beats them all. (Click on the link; it’s not the one below).

(From left) the author with Pawel Koslowski, owner of Mustang Trading, and his trusty customer-service manager, Robert. Without them, he never would have been able to get his 1997 VW Jetta GLX registered in Poland.

By Mark Jurkevich

Here in Warsaw, I have a corporation that’s more or less the American equivalent of a subchapter S. At the urging of my Polish accountant, I finally decided to register my 1997 Volkswagen Jetta GLX to this company. For some years I’d been skating by with New Jersey tags. Not only did this confer certain advantages I’ll get into below, but I have a somewhat morbid fear of government bureaucracy and red tape. I wanted to steer clear of those potential tangles.

Before making the decision, I overcame my reluctance about the bureaucracy by consulting with Mustang Trading, a U.S. car specialist in Warsaw. They assured me this would be a slam dunk, and they would walk me through the process of converting the car to European Union operating standards and getting it registered.

I committed to this decision in late December when I chose not to renew my New Jersey registration, set to expire the end of January. The Polish conversion and registration was estimated as a one- week job costing $1,500.

Almost immediately I was figuratively sucked into a Salvador Dali painting, from which I barely found my way out a month later. Or maybe it was Dante’s Inferno. If it was the latter, my Virgil was Pawel Koslowski, the owner of Mustang Trading. Here’s that story. Read more »

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Note from Dan: This little nugget from Ron May emerged on the Wednesday OPEN thread.  It deserves its own.

“As has been my practice for the years I have served here I have a monthly breakfast with some of the retired nuns who live on the grounds of the Ministry Center. This morning I sat next to Sr. Mary who spent her life as a Poor Handmaid teaching in and leading Catholic schools.

Toward the end of her career the school she led was faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine provided it was of a natural or neutral skin tone, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them; and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally, the principal, Sr. Mary, decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian, who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses).

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, Sister Mary asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.

There were no lip prints on the mirror after that.

There are teachers…… And then there are educators!

We need a few more Sr. Mary’s in our schools today.”

Thank you, Westboro Baptist! (This sign is the creation of blog regular Justin True.)

Perhaps the National Rifle Association has rethought it’s dumb ad? (Or maybe someone rethought it for the NRA).

Photo credit: Amy Wilbanks / Foter / CC BY-ND

Note from Dan: When we last heard from Christina Dietz of Blue Ridge, she was taking to task Liberty University. This time up, she writes: “I noticed on your blog that most of the issues you’ve been addressing lately are political, so I hope you don’t mind me throwing a change of course your way. It’s mostly just for your amusement (since your blog openly invites us to “vent” to you).” Thank, you, Tina. Enjoy, folks!

By Christina Dietz

November — pre-Thanksgiving — usually solicits requests for what people are most thankful for. Unfortunately, for some of us the actual holiday usually ends up being an all too obvious reality check that our families are NOT a Norman Rockwell painting, which is where the need to keep a sense of humor comes in.

Most of the story you are about to read is true.  I sort of compiled the “winner” in the story from stories from other mothers I’ve commiserated with over the years. I wrote it mostly as therapy for myself, because after talking with a few friends I have regained my sense of humor. Read more »